


Set Course

by wingedbears



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Force Bond (Star Wars), Kylo Ren Is In Denial, M/M, Poe Dameron Is Confused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 21:58:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7286209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingedbears/pseuds/wingedbears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the interrogation, Kylo Ren starts a force bond with Poe Dameron.  Kylo thinks this is a great opportunity to solve all his problems, so he chases Poe across the galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Poe screams. 

He feels like his brain is being opened, cracked from the inside. Kylo Ren is reaching through his mind, looking for where the map is, and Poe is not going to give it to him. But the pain is so incredible, and he’s already flayed open, he feels like all his thoughts are there for the taking. Poe tries to push back or block, but there’s no use, there’s nowhere to hide, everywhere in his mind there is Kylo.

But there’s a strand of light. A small thread, reedy and frayed, floating. Poe doesn’t know what it is, other than it gives off a sense of peace, of balance, and that’s what Poe holds onto. It’s weird, this light, but just mentally grabbing it makes Kylo twitch and Poe’s head is forced back, the search combing in the other direction. Poe can’t tell if he’s yelling anymore, but he keeps holding onto the thread of light, and he tugs on it, just a little. It floats, and Poe feels his nose bleed, and as the thread connects (to what he wonders), Poe passes out. 

When he comes to, he knows that Kylo Ren got what he wanted, because he’s no longer there. BB-8 is still on Jakku, and now the whole First Order is after the astromech. 

Poe’s good luck comes through when he meets Finn. But it ends when he crashes the TIE fighter.

 

Kylo has been feeling a twinge in his side for the past day. Less like a twinge, really, more like a searing pain in his right side. The headache doesn’t help either. 

He breathes steadily and goes back to the ship to meditate before meeting Snoke with Hux. It’s not until he’s sitting to meditate that Kylo realizes how much pain he’s in. He takes a steadying breath and focuses inward. Kylo cannot sense anything wrong with his body. Confused, he reaches deeper. He feels it then: the light. It’s usually small and wavering, easy enough to tamp down. But this is grown, somehow. He doesn’t know what did it, but it feels tighter too, like there’s energy flowing in and out of it, instead of it’s usual slow bleeding out. He feels it grow, the call to it, mesmerizing and beautiful. There’s nothing but pain at the end of that journey, he knows. “Help me, Grandfather,” he says, completely perplexed as to what this could be.

He sits in silence, the warped mask of Vader giving no answers.

Kylo rises. He has to meet General Hux and Supreme Leader Snoke. 

He walks into the empty conference hall, and stands at the right hand side of Hux. The relationship between him and Hux is strained at best. The General is only concerned with the First Order’s missions. Kylo has his own.

Snoke appears, larger than life. “You’ve located the map,” he says without greeting.

Hux opens his mouth. “It’s on Jakku, in a BB unit. We’ve located the traitor, FN-2187, he’s crashed on the planet with the Resistance pilot.”

Snoke leans forward, his face twisted in thought. “Find the droid if you can, but destroy it if you must. We cannot have the Resistance find the last of the Jedi.”

General Hux nods, sharp and quick, bows and leaves. 

Supreme Leader Snoke always insists on talking to Kylo after, so Kylo knows not to leave. He feels the approval of Snoke, and he feels better, despite the pain becoming more than he can bear. 

“You’ve done something,” Snoke says, leaning back into his throne. “You feel severe pain, do you not?”

A wave of fear flows through Kylo. He doesn’t know why he thinks he could hide anything from Snoke. Kylo is flayed open in front of him, bare and vulnerable, without any power.

“Yes,” Kylo says, the modulator in his helmet turning the word into a long hiss.

“The Resistance pilot, you used the force on him to obtain information. He made you feel.”

The pilot, Poe Dameron. Yes, he made Kylo Ren feel. Or, he made Ben Solo feel, and Kylo couldn’t help but remember the all encompassing crush that Ben had for the pilot. One look and Kylo was thirteen all over again. He bows his head, an apology. “He means nothing to me now,” Kylo says an admittance.

“That remains to be seen,” Snoke says, dark and deep. “You’ve started a force bond.” The words echo in the hall. 

Kylo stills. A force bond. He’s only read about them. The connection made between two force users, usually, in times of extreme emotion or distress. Jedi shied away from the practice, the risk of death for both users bigger than the payoff of more power. 

That’s why his side is in pain. Poe Dameron is in pain. He crashed on Jakku, and he’s still alive. And now he’s bonded to Kylo Ren.

Kylo says nothing, waiting for instructions instead. 

They come: “You will use the bond to our advantage. Then you will end it.”

Kylo nods, and walks from the hall, and even though Snoke is speaking through a hologram, Kylo can feel Snoke’s eyes follow him out.

Kylo feels unsure, but ready to do what needs to be done. He will use this force bond to find Poe Dameron, and that droid. 

And to find Luke Skywalker.

Then he will end them.

 

Poe wakes up. He looks over, sees that he’s floating in a bacta tank, attached through the breathing mask, almost naked. He floats for a few seconds more before heading up, pressing the button that will de-flood the tank. 

“What happened?” he asks, as a medi-droid scans him over. He’s sitting on a examination table, the thin paper crinkling underneath him, and he feels a little better now that he’s wrapped in a white robe.

Dr. Jalessi looks at the pad in her hand, swiping back and forth, and without looking up answers, “You crashed a TIE fighter on Jakku.” She looks up finally, tucking the pad to her side. “Congratulations on making it out alive.”

Poe nods, eyebrows raised. “Thanks,” he says.

“Managed to hit your emergency comm too,” she says, shooing the droid away. “You’re a lucky guy.”

“I need to go back,” Poe says, thinking of Finn, of BB-8, still carrying the map to Luke Skywalker. 

“Nope,” Dr. Jalessi says, popping her lips. “You’re grounded.”

“Well, then send someone to Jakku, we have to find Finn and BB-8,” he says, immediately thinking of crew to paste together. Snap, of course, and Pava, and-

“We already have a squad there. Your job for the next week is to rest, Commander,” she says, and brings her pad back up. She swirls her finger across the screen, and then taps.

A soft beep emits from Poe’s datapad on the bed. 

“Your flight status is officially changed,” she intones. 

Poe sighs. Grounded. He knows he’ll still be able to lead his group, but not being in the skies with them will change things. It’s going to be a long kriffing week.

He grabs his stuff, jacket missing, he notices, and changes to walk to his quarters. He’s already tired, despite the bacta soak, and he curses his body for being so weak. He flings himself on the bed and falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

It’s dark. There’s a sense of being watched, of having every thought known. There’s no where to turn. Poe starts running, but he’s not running, he can’t move. His body is not his own. He can sense things, can feel the death that’s warped around him; chains. He can’t breathe, he feels like, but he knows that that can’t be right because he’s still here. Poe feels the room start to shake as his heart races, and he can’t move, can’t move, and then something grabs him-  
Poe wakes up, gasping, thrashing out to hit whatever grabbed him. 

What the hell was that?

He’s had nightmares before, but this was so visceral, so intense. And through all that panic he had, the person he was in the dream felt hollow. Empty and angry, utterly lost. Poe lies in bed, trying to breathe steadily, and drifts back to sleep, hoping that it wouldn’t happen again.

 

It does. The next two days, all of Poe’s sleeping hours are unrestful and frightening. He’s in a ship one time, but the same out of body feeling is happening, or sitting still, but he can’t move. And there’s always this other presence, dark and foreboding. The room starts to shake, and Poe reaches, for what he doesn’t know, and that light is back, thin, growing, and Poe grabs onto it with his mind as hard as he can, hoping the light will take him out, and as soon as he touches it, there’s a stillness. Poe can breathe, and the angry husk that he’s in starts to relax. There’s still a presence, not their own, and it watches, listens. The outer person is wary but accepting. Poe hates it. 

Then he hears a voice Where are you

And Poe snaps awake. There’s an ache, deep within in, like something is missing, like someone is missing, and Poe gets up. 

Ache or not, nightmares or not, he’s got work to do.

It’s just unfortunate that it doesn’t work out that way.

 

He’s talking to Snap about the formation the squad needs to take for the next mission- there’s been intel that Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon have BB-8- when that ache that lingered this morning comes back full blast. One minute Poe is standing, and the next he’s grabbing his chest. A swath of emotions hit him all at once, like inner voices attacking during panic. It’s an overwhelming sense of anger and of being lost. Numbness. Poe feels like crying, but can’t, and that’s probably more frustrating than anything else.

Snap is saying something, grabbing onto Poe, but Poe can’t hear him- he can’t hear anything but screams.

 

He can’t lead his squadron like this. He can’t do anything like this. What if he was flying? Okay, he’s grounded, but what if? Poe thinks it’s leftovers from the nightmares he’s having, and stops by the med bay to badger a droid into giving him some sleeping pills (He’s stopped by Dr. Jalessi, who fills the script but with a stern warning to leave her droids alone) and on the way back to his quarters, almost runs smack into General Leia Organa. 

Poe pulls himself up, and crams the pills in his pocket. “General,” he says, nodding. 

“Commander,” Organa returns. She cocks her head, considering him for a moment, a dent between her brows. “Glad to hear you made it out from the First Order,” she says.

“Me too,” Poe says. He rubs his head, unsure of what to say. 

“Are you…” Organa pauses. She looks unsure, her eyes flicking to the left, and then back to Poe, “okay?” she finishes. 

Poe feels his mouth flatten out in a not-quite-a-smile. He shrugs, says, “Hard time sleeping lately.” A common enough complaint in the Resistance, but Leia Organa looks like there’s something else bothering her.

“I don’t do this,” she says, as some non-officer swerves around them in the hallway, “but I know there’s something else going on, Dameron.” 

Poe takes a short breath. Leia is about to drop something personal, and Poe doens’t know if he’s mentally prepared for it. “Honestly, General,” he says, hoping the rank will push her off, “I’m just short on sleep.” He brings up the bottle of sleeping pills he just aquired and shakes it. “Taking care of it,” he says with a smile.

Leia smiles, the action not quite reaching her eyes. She looks like she’s seen a ghost, and is doing her best to put a professional face back on. “I’m glad,” she says. “I’m sure I’m imagining things.” A pinched look crosses her face and she nods and walks away before Poe can say anything else.

Poe goes back his quarters to sleep, a weight on his back that he can’t shake off.

He gets ready for bed and pops the recommended amount of pills before sliding into bed and pulling the covers up. He feels himself drifting, the emotional exhaustion of the day hitting him hard. He sighs, rolling over to his side when it happens again. 

He grabs his chest, the pain overwhelming. But it’s a faint echoed pain, he thinks. Like pressing on a broken bone. He feels himself start crying, the wetness of the tears on his cheeks surprising him. It’s not a physical pain, but an emotional one. He feels wrecked. 

He resents his body, being so weak, and knows somehow, that even with the pills, he’s just going to fall asleep to dream about all the dark things in the universe, and wake up aching for something. He’ll feel hollow and pained at the same time. He shuts his eyes, and hopes that he’s wrong, that he’ll just dream of something weird, like BB-8 joining a dance troupe. But he feels the darkness overtake him as the pills kick in.

 

Kylo takes a ship from the First Order. Single pilot and hyperspace capable, something his command shuttle does not afford. He powers up the engines and pulls out from the docking bay, and drifts away from the Finalizer. He watches as the starcruiser gets smaller and smaller and wonders how he’s supposed to do this. To find Poe Dameron, he has to start on Jakku. It was there he crashed, so it is there that Kylo will begin. 

Kylo finds himself calm as he lands near where the TIE fighter crashed. The short range ship is nowhere to be found, except a small scrap of TIE fighter here and there. Kylo reaches out with the force, and senses that the ground is slowly moving, the sands underneath the surface pulling down. There’s something solid. The TIE fighter. 

Kylo tucks into his emotions and pulls, the sand making a sucking sound, and the ship slowly rises, Kylo shaking from the strain. He places the ship on steady sand, then gasps, exerted. He walks over to the crushed husk of a ship, sand still pouring from it’s wide mouth. Kylo carefully steps over, cautious of the moving ground, and reaches in and swipes sand from the cockpit. He sighs, feeling sweat pouring down his body already, and pulls off his helmet and gloves. He tucks them underneath his arm and closes his eyes. There’s a faint presence of Poe left, along with the stormtrooper left in the ship. A residue, he thinks, the swath of emotions on the ship high. He reaches, sensing the excitement and fear, the determination, all Poe. Kylo blinks. Poe crashed here, then headed out, stumbling his way to… Kylo sees beyond the horizon. The wrong way. Poe went the wrong way. 

Kylo rolls his eyes. 

He stops, and breathes steady. He feels a calm that he has never felt, a warmth that he’s long forgotten. Kylo tamps this down, but it blooms back up despite his efforts. He decides to ignore it and let it die. That’s how most things work with him, anyway, he thinks.

Focus, he has to focus. Kylo traces the path that Poe took, over the shifting sands, somehow narrowly avoiding all the gaping maws of death to make his way to be picked up by the Resistance.

Kylo Ren doesn’t smile. But he does feel his face twitch like it might.

 

Kylo has to repetively pull out of hyperspace to trace Poe’s emotions across the galaxy. He remembers that Skywalker once had to do this to find Han Solo, who had kidnapped his mother. Kylo clenches his fist, waiting for the anger to roll in, but he just feels pain. Kylo frowns, wondering. Any mention of his family is a turmoil of emotions, but here, separated from them and from Snoke, all he feels is sadness. He waits for the anger to hit. But it never comes. 

It should, though. Every time Kylo comes out of hyperspace, Hux, or worse yet, one of Hux’s captains take to calling him for information. 

“Even you should be able to find a droid by now, Ren,” Hux sneers. 

“And although the First Order outnumber one force user, they’ve yet to find anything either.” Kylo waits for the response, always the sense that it’s proceeded by the unspoken words, “you son of a bitch-”

“I’m not Snoke’s messenger boy,” Hux hisses. There it is. Kylo feels a derisive pleasure in riling Hux up. 

Kylo waits, because they both know the position they are in. Kylo is Snoke’s sword, and Hux his mouthpiece. 

“He says that you’re wasting time,” Hux says, and Kylo knows that Hux is saying that more than Snoke. “And that you’re becoming weaker,” Hux’s wide mouth stretches out subtly. A smile. “Tainted.”

Kylo is very aware that this is a test. There are always tests with Snoke. He feels the shame wash over him, but it’s shoved off by something deeper. The light that taints him. Kylo ends the transmission without saying anything. He needs to hold onto his anger.

Kylo sits on his bunk, and pulls up the memories that give him the greatest pain, of being young and alone, shoved aside and feared, and Snoke’s whispers of promise and power. 

Kylo shakes as tears run down his face, but the only thing he feels is overwhelming sadness. He takes in shaky breaths, willing the anger to rise, but only loss comes forth. The taste of it is on the back of his throat, the feeling of self-pity. He comes to his knees, the meditating position, and calls to mind the picture of Vader’s warped mask, a twisted and empty facade. Kylo feels more connection to it than he ever did to Snoke. Snoke may be the leader, but Vader is his master. 

This bond has brought forth the light like nothing else has. “Is it Poe?” Kylo asks aloud. He keeps a steady image of Vader in his mind while weighing the link in his mind. It will bring him to Poe, to the droid, to Skywalker, but at what cost? “The light grows within me, grandfather, it cannot be tamed.” Kylo pulls in a shaky breath, feeling the bond tighten, delicately using the force to run along it, “Where are you?” he asks. He feels the bond tug at him, and he sees a glimpse of his mother’s face. 

Kylo gasps, and opens his eyes. She was drawn, worried, old. It had been ten years, but she had aged more than those years. Kylo slams his eyes shut against the tears, and yet they still flow out, unbidden. He takes in haggard breaths, and tries to strengthen his resolve once more. His mother cannot stop him, she means nothing. 

Even as he thinks this, he knows he is lying. Kylo Ren, a babe weeping for his mother.

Snoke must feel it, and Kylo is washed over in shame. It is this dichotomy that Kylo goes to bed with.

 

The lights come up a few hours later. Kylo grunts, squeezes his eyes shut. His dreams seemed less visceral than usual, and the opportunity of a good bout of rest was one his body was not letting go of lightly. He feels it, the bond, growing, thickening as rope does, threads upon threads, twisting and pulling. He follows it, and sees flashes of the base, but nothing can give him the location. It’s just what Poe sees, his room, the inside of a ship; x-wing most likely, faces among his crew. And Ben Solo’s mother. 

Kylo rolls off of the cot and goes to the cockpit, sits in the pilot’s seat. He pulls up the closest hyperspace paths on his navicomm, and stares at it blankly. 

There is a part of him, deep within, that wants to explain to her what happened, why he’s doing this, but she knows. She’s part of the reason. He was shunned, turned away, feared, and then sent away to be with a distant uncle that couldn’t fathom the voice that kept telling him of the infinite power Kylo had. The power that would enable Kylo to become more than a scared boy, but a determined force user, someone who didn’t need anybody.

The idea that the force bond brings him closer to someone else is not something Kylo had considered. Would Poe now know the inner workings of Kylo? See what he sees?

Poe couldn’t possibly understand what Kylo is, what his mission is. The universe is frail and torn, and there is a need for order. Kylo doesn’t think that the First Order has it right, but neither does the Republic. The Resistance is only a militarized group in the Republic’s back pocket. 

Darth Vader wanted a balance to the force. Was it so much that Kylo could ask the same? 

Skywalker told him that Vader followed the old ways, of letting fear and anger lead him, but that the old order were without attachments, without emotions. Emotions clouded judgment. 

But Kylo also remembers that Skywalker once told him that it was love that ruined Darth Vader, but love that ultimately saved him. Luke’s love and trust. 

Kylo has only known the fear and hate that he feels. Love was something his parents could not give him, something Skywalker could not afford to give a student. Snoke only told him that his fear was true, and that there was power behind it. The hate came naturally after that. 

Kylo taps in coordinates, and punches into hyperspace, sensing along the bond that the Resistance’s base was coming closer with each jump. It was further out from the core systems. 

He sits back and waits.


	2. Chapter 2

Poe is dead tired. The pills help him get to sleep, but it’s not a restful one. He wakes up groggy and filled with this sense of being watched, or hunted. It’s a dark feeling, but there’s something else along with it too: always at the core is that peaceful light, that presence that Poe clung to in his darkest hour with Kylo Ren. 

Kylo Ren. The monster with a mask; not the first in Poe’s lifetime, but once is enough. The one that killed his childhood friend Ben Solo. 

Poe had been a rambunctious child, always wandering off into the forests of Yavin IV and sneaking into the temple of the Jedi Knights, watching them move through their katanas; slow movements filled with power. He remembers once he was _not spying, Dad, come on,_ and watched as the force users marched into the forest. Curious, Poe moved to follow. He was about to jump on his speeder when one of the Jedi in training ran up to him. The boy had stopped a few feet away, suddenly unsure. 

Poe waited, and let out a small greeting. He felt his hand hung in the air, useless. 

The boy ducked his head, seemed to steel his reserve and said, “Master Luke says that it’s alright if you want to come with us.”

Poe blushed, embarrassed about being found out so obviously. “I-” he said, not sure of what to say. He wasn’t sorry, not really, but still ashamed.

“We’re going to explore the force life of the forest,” the boy offered. Then paused, biting his lip. “It’ll probably be boring for you.” The boy shrugged, and looked at Poe, waiting for an answer.

“Of course I want to come,” Poe blurted out, and the soft smile that stretched out across the boy’s face made Poe feel warm all over. 

“I’m Ben,” the boy said after Poe dismounted the speeder. It was later that Poe realized this was Ben Solo, the son of Leia Organa, Ben Solo, possibly the most powerful force user in the galaxy.

 

Kylo feels it: Poe is thinking about Ben Solo. 

Kylo frowns, even as he tries to focus in on those thoughts, trying to feel and follow the emotional aftertaste with the force. Poe feels strongly for Ben, as Ben once did for Poe. A small comfort to them both, now. There is little Kylo can do to bring back Ben Solo, he is as dead as Vader.

And yet. There’s a twinge that Kylo feels, thinking about Poe. The damned emotions that started this force bond in the first place. Kylo remembers that face, only more handsome from time and experience, and Kylo sighs. There was a time when Ben Solo would have given anything to be with Poe Dameron, even the force. But fate had other ideas. 

Kylo mindlessly fiddles with the flight controls, never entering anything, just adjusting here and there, desperately trying to get his mind off of a pilot. There’s not much on board to do, and no one to talk to. Kylo looks out of the transparasteel and sees the stars as he slowly drifts in space. There is more life than Kylo can even comprehend out here, but now, he is alone. Almost. 

Kylo is never quite alone. Not with Snoke, ever watchful, attuned to Kylo’s feelings like no other. Kylo can feel the grasp Snoke has, even this far out. 

He swallows and tries to breathe regularly, his chest feeling weighted. Kylo will never truly be alone. At one time that would have been a comfort. Now it feels like chains that there are no key to. 

“Focus,” Kylo says to himself. He finds that link again, that strengthening power that keeps growing, and wills himself to find Poe, to find the other end. He traces along the emotions, pain, loss, and that ever growing peacefulness that he’s never the like of before. There was a time… but Kylo puts that aside and reaches along the link and is hit with a wave of feeling exhausted. Poe is growing more and more tired as Kylo becomes rested. 

Kylo pauses. There was never anything about force bonds in the temple, being so frowned upon for Jedis. So he’s not sure how to handle this. The link ideally is to strengthen them both, but Poe is not force sensitive. How this will actually work is a mystery to Kylo. But he knows that Poe’s exhaustion can only come from Kylo himself. 

He feels himself reaching again, down the link, slowly this time, trying to feel his way through emotions as much as thoughts and visions. Poe is caught up in memories of Ben Solo at the moment, a sadness and regret tinting the thought of the boy and their relationship. Poe loved him, loved Ben.

Kylo gasps. It’s not as if Kylo had no idea, that the feelings were returned. But the idea that someone could love him is a far cry softer than the acute feeling of love coming to him down the link. 

Kylo pauses and wonders. If Poe is feeling exhausted, that’s because of Kylo. Would Poe be able to effect Kylo in the same manner? Was that what this sudden peacefulness arose from? It wasn’t the light, but Poe.

But what was the light before? Those moments of feeling utterly torn, of wishing for another life, for different choices. Was that all false too?

Kylo is getting a kind of feedback from Poe’s emotions, just as Poe is getting from Kylo. But bleeding out emotions and thoughts and visions would be different from actually taking and giving, wouldn’t it? Passive versus active. Kylo feels himself reach in deeper to Poe, and pull, softly, that tiredness away and towards Kylo, only to let it diffuse along the link between them. Kylo feels more weighted, more like himself, and senses that Poe is curious, but shrugs off this new found energy as a second wind.

Well, Kylo thinks. He’s not sure what to do with this information now that he has it. He can sense what Poe is feeling and thinking, even take or give energy or force-life to him, but that’s still not a beacon as to where Poe is, where the Resistance is. Kylo thinks for a moment. There’s a slight possibility that Poe could lead him to the Resistance, but Kylo’s ultimate goal is Skywalker. 

Skywalker had once told him that he had to chase Han Solo across the galaxy in a similar manner as Kylo was now chasing Poe. It was because Han Solo had kidnapped Leia Organa. That was the motive that time, but now it was for Skywalker’s own death sentence. 

Kylo reaches and reaches, chasing along that line, each time it becomes faster and easier, and tastes the relief of Poe. Kylo is getting close. He closes his eyes and tries to picture Poe, where he might be, trying to rally his troops even though he’s grounded (Kylo could feel the resentment and restlessness of Poe). Kylo bathes himself in that light for a moment, feeling the easiness of it, the calmness that has never been afforded to him. Poe had always been the grounded one, and Kylo the one without measures. Kylo feels, absorbing the clean energy, sensing some of his own in Poe. Poe must be tired from Kylo’s energy. From being bonded to him. 

Kylo is aware of the thought that is always carried with him, _speaking up, you taint everything: what can’t you ruin?_ Kylo had the gift of slowly killing everything, even himself. The peace that he finds in Poe, that’s false. A facade of calm, it is only Poe’s natural life force. Kylo huffs in frustration. He closes his eyes and remembers the afternoon that he finally got the nerve to ask Poe to come with the trainees, using Skywalker as an excuse. 

They went deeper into the jungle, and Kylo, wanting so desperately to impress Poe pulled him aside to where a patch of moss and sprouts were growing. “Look,” Ben said, and feeling out with the force, found the minuscule droplets of water hanging on the moss, let the water absorb into the moss, let it hold steady against the rock. Ever so gently he found the roots of the sprout, and pushed the smallest amount of water in, and the sprout grew. It looked like the sprout only twitched, but the leaves at its head had grown. It was something he worked on to calm himself, the detailed and focused action keeping thoughts and voices from his head. 

Poe looked up in wonder, his dark eyes wide in delight. “That,” he said. “That is awesome.”

Ben Solo smiled, because it was the first time anyone had praised his use of the force, rather than feared it. Even Skywalker was cautious around him, treating him like a detonation device set on the most sensitive level. Not to mention his parents.

Kylo punches in coordinates for a short route; the jumps are getting smaller and smaller the closer he gets. He thinks that distance doesn’t matter when it comes to a force bond, but it feels stronger, somehow. Like it’s growing. 

 

Kylo wakes up hard.

This is confusing to him to say the least. He thought that perhaps with his training he had gotten over such base mannerisms. His bladder isn’t full, and… he’s had a peaceful night’s sleep. This is possibly the result of having slept well. Kylo tries to think about other things to abate the erection, but no matter what he tries to focus on, the feeling in his groin doesn’t go away. 

This is Poe’s fault. He’s hardly had any sexual urges since he was seventeen, but here Kylo is, well rested and suffering. 

Kylo glares down at his dick, pressing up against his pants that he didn’t take off before this particular sleep cycle. 

Kylo sighs, and figures it should be easy enough to take care of. He did do this at one point in his life, how difficult could it be to pick back up again? He just wants this damned thing gone already, so he unhooks and unzips his pants and takes himself in hand.

He pulls up and down, and while it feels good, it’s not enough. Kylo grunts, tired of this already, and brings his hand up to sloppily lick at it, bringing the wet hand back down to his cock, stroking it.

Poe, not quite at the other end of the galaxy, is suddenly hit with the sensation of pleasure, and the urge to stick his hand into his jumpsuit. It feels like he’s in the middle of a jerk off session, when all he had been thinking about was whether or not to refit his ship with navigational controls. He hasn’t been turned on by the changing of the wind in a long time. He’s not hard, but he feels like he will be soon, so he beats it to the nearest supply closet and slams the door shut, leaning up against it. As fast as he can he unzips his flight suit and sticks his hand into his underwear. He grabs his cock and feels like he’s midway through a jerk off session, even though he’s only just begun. 

Kylo himself feels like he’s gone into overdrive, and it’s too much all at once. He can feel the sensation of Poe, what Poe is feeling, and it’s the most intense feedback he’s ever experienced. Kylo is stroking furiously, or at least he thinks he is, his eyes are shut tight, and he’s so overwhelmed with emotion. He comes, fast and hard, and is panting, staring at the roof of the ship when he feels another orgasm wash through him, and although nothing is physically happening with his body, he still clenches, because it feels like he’s coming, but he’s not, and it’s weird and wonderful at the same time.

For Poe it’s like one long orgasm, one punch after another, and he has to slide down to the duracrete floor in shock, because, _what in the verse was that_. 

Poe pauses, because as amazing and scary as that experience was, the thought he had was not entirely his own. It was like a voice echoed in his head, something separate but still entirely his own. 

Poe stands up, shaking. There’s got to be something seriously wrong with him, and he bets his life that it’s because of the insomnia. 

_Where are you?_

There. Poe knows that’s not his own voice, knows that it’s not part of him, even though it’s in him. 

Poe makes a beeline for the med station.

 

“I’m hearing voices,” he’s telling a droid as it’s checking his breathing and blood pressure. “Well, not voices, but _a_ voice,” he says.

The med droid pricks his finger and reads off the blood levels. Poe can see Dr. Jalessi shuffling around with a datapad behind the curtain. “It keeps asking where I am? Like if I’m really two different personalities, wouldn’t I know where I am? How does this work?” Poe recognizes that he’s getting into hysterics, but the med droid just gives him a blank stare, and carries on with its business. Poe really misses BB-8. 

“And I keep having these nightmares,” Poe says, trying to figure this out. “And it’s like I have this feeling of being watched by something evil, but at the same time there’s this presence, this essence of something good there too.”

“Dr. Jalessi will be with you in just a moment,” the droid says, its voice harsh and bracing. 

But Dr. Jalessi is already there, shooing the droid off to the next patient. She pulls up a stool and looks Poe in the eye. “What happened, Poe?” she asks, her face screwed up in worry.

“Am I-” he says. Dying. He’s dying, he thinks for a brief and frightening moment. 

Dr. Jalessi reaches out and touches his arm lightly. “What happened that you’re not telling us?”

Poe frowns at this. What hasn’t he been honest about? He crashed a TIE fighter, and now he’s not even sure what’s happening. He’s losing his grip on reality. “I’ve told you everything.”

Dr. Jalessi looks down at her datapad and scrolls through it. “You show signs of sleep loss,” she says. “But you look full of energy.”

Poe shrugs. “Adrenaline,” he replies. 

She shakes her head. “There’s only a normal amount in your system.” She leans forward. Scrutinizes him for a moment before saying, “When is the last time you dealt with someone strong with the force?”

Poe pauses. “General Organa,” he says blankly. The idea that a doctor could be telling him about the ways of the force is unorthodox, but…

Dr. Jalessi waves a hand around, brushing the idea off. “She wouldn’t do this,” she says. “You keep having nightmares, but feel a good presence there, you can’t sleep well at all because of this, but you don’t seem to be suffering,” she lists off. “You hear a voice. Not multiple voices, just one?”

Poe nods.

“What happened before you crashed, Poe?” 

“I was on the Finalizer,” he says.

“What happened on the Finalizer?” Dr. Jalessi asks, not looking away.

“I was tortured,” he says, feeling the mark on his cheek, still healing after all this time.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Jalessi says, a look of concern crossing her face. “But I’m going to have to ask: who tortured you?”

Poe stays silent. 

“Was it Kylo Ren?” she asks softly.

Poe nods, wondering where all this is headed.

“Poe,” Dr. Jalessi says, laying down her datapad on the examination table and clasping her hands together, “have you ever heard of a force bond?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha, OH MAN Kylo, you are in for it now. Poe is not having any of your nonsense.
> 
> Thank you to everyone that took the time to send me some love for this fic, whether through comments or kudos!! You guys help me write.


	3. Chapter 3

Poe is furious. He storms out of the med bay, and gets all the way into the cockpit of his x-wing before remembering that he’s grounded at the moment. He sits in the cockpit and wonders if any of this is going to work out, wonders what’s going to happen. All he can think about or see is Jalessi telling him about the force bond.

“You'll be okay,” she says, “It’s strange, not a lot is known about it, but it seems natural.” She told him about how he’s connected to Kylo, how Kylo Ren’s thoughts and feelings are his own, and it makes him a little sick to think about that orgasm he just had. Bizarrely amazing and raw? Yes, but also it was from Kylo Ren, who until this point, had no sexual urges according to Poe. An automaton. A droid without a maker, ruthless and evil. Not that Poe’s given thought about Ren’s sexual urges. Why would he, if the man was determined to be the most inhuman thing possible, hanging out and lording over a posse of like minded force users.

But that’s not the issue. What really seals it for Poe, is the nightmares. All those screams and whispers, curling, dark and cruel around his ears, thoughts like, so powerful, useless, a thing to be used, all those thoughts are Kylo Ren. That tears it. 

Kylo Ren has a direct link to Poe’s thoughts and feelings too. And that means that bastard is on his way to the base right now. Poe has to leave. There’s no time to get permission, and besides, all of his problems stemmed from Ren anyway, what would the big deal be if Poe took off now? He can’t get this problem solved unless one of them dies, apparently, and Poe thought force users were supposed to be calm, although maybe that’s why the Sith are so blasted dramatic. Life or death, no between. 

Poe gets out of the ship and runs to his quarters, trying to slide past anyone in his way. There’s no time to lose, because if Poe is here, and Ren is coming for him, the whole of the Resistance would fall, and it would all be because of Poe. Poe’s not going to take that chance. He gets to his room and slams an extra flight suit and a change of clothes in a duffel, and grabs his datapad and comm. He knows that the credits he has isn’t going to get him far, but he has to try. He almost yells for BB-8 before he realizes.

Poe heads back to the hangar and nabs the first solo ship not on the docket for take off in battle. It’s a little run down and in need of some minor repairs, but it can jump into lightspeed, and that’s all he needs for now. He mutters “Sorry,” to no one in particular as he gets in the ship and shifts it out into the atmosphere. 

He can see out of the corner of his eye the mechanic trying to wave him down. A few seconds later, a beep comes on the comm. “Dameron, what are you doing?” It’s Pava.

“Can’t explain, but I have to do this for the good of the Resistance.”

There’s a pause, and the ship is pulling up into space, and now he has to sit for the jump, while the ship calculates to where it asked. “Anywhere, outer rim, who cares,” he says when General Organa calls over the line.

“Aren’t you grounded?” She sounds more wry than annoyed, which speaks more to her being exhausted rather than actually okay with what’s going on. How they got her on the line so quickly was an amazing feat, so Poe gives credit to where it’s due. 

“Sorry, General,” he says. “I have to this for the sake of the Resistance.” What else can he do? 

There’s a static pause, and then, “I know. Poe? Bring him home.”

And before he can ask what the hell that means, she clicks off, and Poe is left alone. That seems to be blanket permission to do what he needs, so in true Dameron style, he’s going to take it and run. 

He jumps into hyperspace, and it’s like the vacuum of space closes in on him. It’s just him and Kylo Ren now. He can sense it, the crippling fear and anger. And then a voice: _Where are you?_

Poe tries as hard as he can to direct his thoughts down the line. “Fuck you.”

_You don’t have to try so hard._

“No, I want to. Fuck you. You’ve ruined my life, and you can piss off into a sarlaac’s stomach, fucknut.”

Poe doesn’t hear much from Kylo after that, although there’s the lingering sense of pouting, and insolence, which is unbelievable, because this is a grown man.

Poe stops at a planet, looking barely terraformed, and he glides into the atmosphere, looking for any signs of life. There’s some on one side, so Poe lands well outside a colony, thinking that if Kylo caught up with him he doesn’t want anyone in the crossfire. He hikes further into the forest, following a faint trail from previous hikers. Not completely alone, then. But still out of the way. Eventually he comes across a campground, not in current use, so Poe just dumps his duffel there and makes camp. 

He’s curled up near the dying fire, drifting off into a hard sleep, knowing that Kylo is there waiting for him, and Poe dreads it, but also longs to punch Kylo in the face, so it’s an even trade off in his book. 

He opens his eyes, and expecting to see kindling in ashes, he sees the floor of a spaceship. He sits up. He looks, and Kylo is kneeling, his back to Poe.  
Kylo’s back moves steady and even, and Poe can see that Ren is not wearing a helmet. Dark, soft waves rest on broad shoulders. Poe suddenly feels like he shouldn’t move, like maybe if he did, everything would break, although all he wants to do is reach down to his blaster and scorch the guy. There’s a moment where he holds his breath, uncertain, because seeing the human part of the machine is far more jolting than the armor of the helmet.

Poe reaches down to his thigh, quick as he can, and grabs his blaster, but before he can do anything, Kylo Ren whips his arm out, reaching, and Poe’s blaster flies to his hand. 

Poe wildly notes that the hands are bare too, before realizing that he’s looking at the face of a monster, and that monster is Ben Solo.

Poe feels like he can’t breathe, like this is another nightmare, but less lucid, less drenched in reality, and he so desperately wants to wake up. 

It’s like all the air has been sucked out, and for a wild moment he thinks that an airlock on the ship has been opened, and this is what it feels like to die in space, his blood boiling and his breath gone. He’s gone into a kind of trance, until Kylo - Ben- Kylo? Lowers the arm with Poe’s blaster in hand. 

The minutia of Ben’s face is dulled, like everything has been repressed, until there’s a twitch, an eyebrow going up for a tick, and Poe feels like this is a file he’s read over a thousand times, a holo he has memorized, and it’s like going back to that, to the easiness of seeing Ben, Ben who he thought was long dead, and Kylo Ren is wearing his face.

“Ben?” he asks, softly, wondering where the air in his lungs came from, because there’s not any anymore. 

Ben’s face shuts down, it’s completely blank until he speaks up, “Ben Solo is gone,” he says.

Poe shakes his head, wondering. “You’re right here,” he replies. 

Ben’s eyes narrow slightly, and he looks like he’s going to say something else when he freezes. 

Poe thinks it might be a change in the dream, but all Ben does is grab his head and bring it down to the floor, like a child prostrate before it’s father, not knowing what else to do.

And that’s when Poe feels it: that sickening darkness is here. He was still absorbed in the shock of seeing Ben in Kylo Ren’s clothes that he didn’t realize that the usual nightmarish landscape had completely changed, that he wasn’t hearing that compelling and deep voice telling him that all his secret fears were true. That all his greatness was why he was set apart, and it made him all the better for it.

Except this time it’s grown in intensity and measure, instead of the echo it usually is. Poe almost wants to copy Ben’s movements, but instead he’s desperately still, eyes darting around for the source, and for the gun that Ben dropped in the grab for his head. 

Ben’s breath has picked up in rapidness, his chest heaving. He doesn’t say anything, but goes entirely still, and the voice starts in again, _you’re wasting time, come back._

That’s when Poe puts it together. That voice, that darkness, that’s not Ben. That’s not even Kylo. That’s something else, someone else talking, changing Ben into Kylo, like ink in water, forever changed.

“It’s not you,” Poe says, and Kylo looks up, confused. “Who is it?” Poe asks, before Kylo can say anything.

“My master,” Kylo says, challenging.

“This is a dream, right?”

Kylo nods, slowly.

“Are you dreaming the same thing? Is that voice really here?”

“That voice, that voice is Supreme Leader Snoke. It’s possible he can hear my subconscious thoughts, but seeing into my dreams might be something even he cannot master.”

“So the dark, that’s him, then?”

Kylo looks blankly at Poe. “I’m of the dark too,” he says.

And Poe knows while it is a dream, it must be true at the same time. There is no true Ben Solo anymore, no soft boy looking to become a Jedi, although reluctantly. This was a man who had no where left to turn. At least, that’s what he thought. Poe was unsure, but he thought that maybe Ben was still there, in some sense, in those eyes, and that must be why Kylo Ren had to cover up in the helmet, because the world would know that Kylo Ren had the eyes of Ben Solo, and that was a terror beyond imagining. 

Poe, regardless, reaches out to Kylo. “That may be,” he says, holding onto Ren’s shoulder. “But there is good in you.”

Kylo shrugs him off, his face twisted in fury. Poe can feel the power surging through them both, and he feels heady and weighted at the same time. “I am not who you think I am,” he says, his face twisted in a mask of anger. 

Poe closes his eyes and feels the connection between them: he looks for the calm in the storm, and clumsily tries to pull in, not knowing at all what he’s doing. He can feel the answering call at the other end of the galaxy and right in front of him, and Poe tries to gather as much as he can, and pushes that calm towards Kylo, trying to show him. That’s you, he thinks, trying to direct his thoughts, this feeling, and he feels like Kylo has heard but he doesn’t respond. Poe keeps going, though. _For how long_ , he wonders, _this isn’t you._

Which is when Poe is hit with a fury of sensations, hate and fear and uncertainty, and he can feel that warm tether between the two of them stretch, and Poe wakes up in a sweat, his head pounding, and his bones feel like they’re on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poe is on a mission, you guys. Kylo is now just confused.


	4. Chapter 4

Kylo forcibly shoves the link out of his mind, but it bounces back with intensity, and Kylo throws up. Heaving, he tries to think exactly what went wrong.

Poe Dameron in his dreams. This isn’t entirely unheard of, having been a teenager around Poe. But the thought that they are so entwined, that Poe can come to Kylo like that, see him even in this space… it’s something Kylo hasn’t thought about before. Kylo wants his privacy, but throwing Poe out isn’t an option, because it hurts Kylo too. 

But then he hears it, _Ben, can you hear me?_

Kylo groans. Unbelievable. Poe Dameron is now using the link in some misguided attempt to save him. He cannot be saved. He will not be saved.

_I know now_ , Poe is saying, _I know that that’s not you._

_Stop_ , Kylo thinks. 

Ben has long been gone, but Kylo has to keep going, has to find the map to Skywalker. Somewhere in this galaxy that droid has the map, and Poe Dameron is the key to unlocking it. 

He’s determined, so he continues his search anew. The idea that Poe can now talk back, or at least knows how to, anyway, soon becomes more of a danger than Kylo anticipated, because the next few hours it’s Dameron talking incessantly.

_Ben? I hope you can hear me. I think you can, because I feel you being annoyed, but I’m going to keep talking anyway. Remember when we were kids? Remember when I would stalk the Jedi on Yavin IV, and you finally came up to me and showed me that trick with the plant? I thought that was the coolest thing. I thought that you were the coolest thing, but Ben, I didn’t see you. I saw your powers, but I didn’t see you. And I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry that I ever made it seem like I was more interested in your powers than in you._

Word after word comes flowing down the link, this faith that Dameron has in Ben Solo almost makes Kylo ache, if he had any feelings left. 

_And I think, no, I know that this isn’t you. All those dreams I had, all that fear was you. You were feeling the fear, and that evil was Snoke. I know it. There’s good in you, Ben. You are good. And I know that you can turn around. It’s not too late. Your mom told me to bring you home, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I know you think you have some mission that will let you gain control, but I know that the control you’re looking for isn’t there. Your control is weakening, and that’s okay, because I’m here. I’m here, and I won’t leave you. You can push me away all you want, but I’m not leaving._

The phrases are things he hasn’t heard in a long time, the words gentle and promising, and nothing like the curdling fear that Snoke provides. It’s all warmth and assurance, and even faith that he can do the right thing, that Kylo can turn back around, and finally, the most idiotic thing Dameron could do: tell Kylo where he is.

Poe has a death wish, Kylo thinks, astounded. Why would anyone trust him? He’s only what Vader is, more machine than man, and now, an empty husk behind a mask, sitting in the ashes of his enemies. 

So Kylo punches in the coordinates for the system that Poe is in, and as he flies out he hears all the things that were never told to him, so much like honey landing on the tongue, the sweetest thing in a long time. 

_I’ll be waiting. I have a campsite set up. I’ll wait for you._

Kylo doesn’t dare think it, but it feels like home.

But the journey half a cycle in, Snoke hails him on the comm. 

He says, “You need to finish your training.” 

“Supreme Leader,” Kylo says, nodding. 

“The bond is weakening you by the moment, each passing cycle brings you further away from your true purpose.” 

“I know that I can kill Skywalker,” Kylo says.

“No, Skywalker will see your weakness, your bond, and he will destroy you.”

Kylo frowns, even as his head is bowed. “Master, I feel more powerful than ever,” he says, knowing he’s pushing it, knowing that the hammer can come down at any moment.

“Come back to me,” Snoke says, “and I will sever this bond, and you will grow all the stronger for it.” 

Kylo hears the click that means the transmission has ended. He doesn’t know what to do. It’s obvious that with the bond with Poe he’s become more than capable in some things, his fear and anger aren’t as intense, that is true, and he so often draws on that to use the force. But the underlying calmness that Poe gives him is like nothing he’s ever known before, and while he’s only been cramped on a ship for the past seven cycles, he knows without a doubt that he could crush Skywalker. That he would kill the last of the Jedi. Snoke’s grip on him has become more tenuous as Poe carries on talking to him, almost a constant chatter of what’s going on, what’s happening in that current moment, and Kylo wants to tell him to shut up, but honestly, he kind of enjoys it. He likes knowing that Poe is waiting for him, and at the same time Kylo knows that if he tried to shove the bond out of his mind forcibly again, all it would do is make him physically ill. 

Should Snoke cut the bond, that would be the end of Kylo. 

Snoke wants him dead. 

Kylo has always been short sighted, that’s one of his greatest faults, if he could say he had any, and knowing that Snoke ultimately doesn’t want him to survive this, is only using him as a pawn… Kylo feels like Vader did, he knows now. Feels as if the master is wrong, somehow. Skywalker had told him that it was love that was Anakin’s downfall, but love that saved him. 

Kylo can’t pinpoint what was his downfall, but he thinks it might be the absence of love. And here, love is going to kill him. 

Except he doesn’t categorize this as love, really. More like, acceptance.

He doesn’t know what to do. If he continues on his course, he’ll be with Poe, find Skywalker, rule the galaxy… he pauses. Kylo’s thoughts on this tenuous future stops short. Exactly what does he have in mind, if he rules the galaxy? To do so by Snoke’s side? That’s no longer feasible. To kill all the remaining Jedi, and begin a legacy of darkness over the galaxy? 

And if he goes back, Snoke will sever this thing that Kylo has begun to treasure.

Kylo feels a weight on his shoulders like nothing else before. Everything is leading to his death, but the only plus side of staying on course now is that it would save Poe.

Kylo has been on this ship for way too long by himself. He looks at the bed and wonders if he could spend the rest of his life asleep. It’s a tempting thought, this. 

Kylo reaches up and feels for the releases on his helmet. There’s a _snickt_ , and then the unfiltered air that hits his face. He drops the mask knowing that this is a time in his life where he can’t go back. There’s only now, only what can happen in this moment.

Kylo drops to his knees, and breathes in deeply. He can feel Poe there in the back of his mind, bright and warm, a burning fire, consuming him.

He feels that strength and closes his eyes, focuses, and he is concentrating so hard that the image he stumbles on feels like a memory — _Poe smiling warmly at him from the bed, a small child next to him, looking up at them, turning her tiny body to Kylo and lifting both arms up in complete confidence that she’ll be picked up_ — 

Kylo gasps. Once Luke told him about the time he saw Leia and Han in trouble, flashes of strong emotion tied to the future. 

“Things that may be,” Skywalker said to him, his eyes distant. “But trust the force in its guidance of you.”

Kylo opens his eyes, and there, glowing blue, is Anakin Skywalker, his brow creased in worry, his mouth tugged down at the corners. 

Kylo feels his eyes widen exponentially. His mouth opens and closes.

The light that haunts him, he feels it: this is the light, this is his grandfather.

“Ben,” Anakin says.

Kylo doesn’t reply, unbelieving. All this time. All this time he had thought that the light, the calm was a tortuous reminder of his past, but instead here it is, his past and his future. It consumes him and he feels shame. He does not deserve— 

“Ben,” Anakin says again, stopping that thought before it continues. 

“How could I have been so wrong?” Kylo asks, shaken.

Anakin shakes his head. “What you know as right, it’s a toxin to you,” Anakin says. “You’ve been broken, Ben. Your past has broken you.”

Kylo bows his head. 

“But you can still grow from that.”

“How.” Not even a question, an impossibility.

“Remember how you showed Poe that trick with the plant?”

Ben blinks. He feels his tears, unbidden on his cheeks. He holds out his hand, palm up.

Anakin smiles. “The smallest drops of water can make something grow.” 

He kneels next to Kylo, even ground between them both. “I only ever listened to the toxic things in my life, only ever absorbed the darkness, and it consumed me. I turned, because I felt that what was right, that it would bring me justice.”

Ben is silent, but listens.

“Find the light. Find what you struggle against. Don’t let what was past haunt you. Your future can be greater than you have ever known. I didn’t get to have that because I let the dark swallow me.”

“Ben.” 

Ben looks up from his hands, palms up in supplication. 

“Don’t let it swallow you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, remember when I used to update regularly? Me too. Thanks for being patient with me, as real life has been a total drag as of late.
> 
> And major shoutout to all those still commenting and kudosing. If I could, I'd stand outside your place and sing about how you light up my life.


	5. Chapter 5

Poe feels it in his bones; Kylo isn’t coming back. Poe wants to weep, to set down on his knees and cry out, but instead he packs it all in, and kicks dirt into the embers of the fire. He’s going after Ben.

It’s a stupid idea, probably one of the worst he’s ever had, but he knows that Kylo is turning around out of some stupid self sacrificing reason, and what can only be the force drives Poe onward. 

He doesn’t even think as he packs up the camp. It is what it is, and this is saving Kylo from Ben. Because only Ben would be stupid enough to turn the ship around out of sense of preservation, and only Kylo would think that it would lead to darkness.

Poe fuels up at the nearest city, passing on the few credits he has, and jumps back in his ship. He has to go to the belly of the beast to save an idiot. Great.

Poe’s mouth thins out into a straight line as he punches in the coordinates for the closest system to the Starkiller Base. This might be the stupidest thing that the both of them have ever done.

 

Kylo’s ship is only three cycles away from the Finalizer, where he’s supposed to contact Snoke, a more secure system to hail him on. Kylo can only imagine what will come next. He is an animal in the ring, being shot at to rise to anger.

Kylo, for a brief moment, thinks that he is finally doing right, at least by his grandfather, but then Anakin’s words come back to him: “Don’t let it consume you.” Kylo didn’t know what to say in that moment. He was bare and open, his emotions and mind wide. Was he not already consumed? Anakin didn’t say so, but he had faded out after the warning.

And if Kylo wasn’t consumed, did that mean he was Ben? The son of a smuggler that feared him, of a mother that pushed him away, was that who he really was?

But if that was so, then who was Kylo? Kylo, who murdered villages and children, who became the thing that children fear, becoming the thing that his father willed him into. An uncontrollable monster.

That was him too.

But yet, Ben Solo remained. He felt that unsure boy within him.

Kylo is ruminating over all this when he senses Poe through the bond. The last few cycles have been a comfort to him because of Poe. And here Kylo is being Ben, in some way by trying to save this piece of him. Kylo is going back to what he knows, and leaving what could be behind, because that scares him most of all. The warmth of Poe’s thoughts wash over him. It’s the cadence of his voice, the images of Ben himself, and then what was incomprehensible and beautiful noise becomes notes on a page before him: Poe is coming after him.

_Don’t stop me_ , Poe says.

_You can’t do this_ , Kylo thinks desperately, _I’m doing this for you. This way only I get hurt._

_I’m not stopping, and you’re an idiot. If you get killed, I will be hurt._

Kylo shakes his head, even though it’s only him here. _I won’t let you_.

There’s silence from Poe, but the overall feeling is suck it, asswipe.

What could Kylo possibly do? The idea comes: distract him.

_You know I’m in your head, right? Like I can hear you thinking about distracting me._

Kylo’s brows come together, then he pulls up an image, the face of Poe Dameron looking down at him, mouth wet and open, Kylo on his knees.

_Stop that._

Kylo thinks about how it would feel, having Poe in his mouth, the fullness, the taste, the moments where he can’t breathe, choking on his thick cock.

There’s a heat, a wave of lust comes towards him, and Kylo feels smug, but also surprised.

Poe likes that? The idea of Kylo on his knees for him, learning his body?

Now comes utter confusion. _Of course,_ Poe says. _Of course I’m into that. I-_

What? Kylo wants to ask. Maybe he did. He forgot - how could he forget- that his mind was so open to Poe.

Soft amusement, embarrassment before that sparking heat comes in again. _I used to think of you when I got off as a teenager._

Kylo had thought that he was unable to blush anymore. But he feels his face and chest heat up, his heart pick up speed. He doesn’t have any words, so he gently pushes these emotions to Poe.

_You were cute,_ Poe says. 

Kylo wants to beat his head on the console.

_But you’re beautiful now,_ Poe says, and sends an image of himself kissing Ben oh so softly.

Ben wants to tear everything apart, to yank all of the galaxy in half if it means he’ll have Poe with him. There’s nothing that he can do now, but wait, and let what will happen to come to him.

Poe sends a stubborn wave of sadness and comfort, and Ben basks in it for the moment, drifting into sleep in the pilot’s chair.

 

“Ben,” Poe breathes, unbelieving as the world starts to take shape around him, each piece falling into place as he lays eyes on it. They are in his room, his childhood bedroom, the model of the x-wing on the bookshelf, scattered papers. Ben is looking out the window to the force tree given to Poe’s mother by Luke Skywalker himself.

Ben turns, and he looks startled, as if he didn’t expect to see Poe there, in his own bedroom. He blinks, and looks around him, and when his eyes latch onto Poe’s face, there is a warmth to them he hasn’t seen before.

Poe strides up to him, but then stops short. He reaches a hand up to Ben’s face, slowly.

Ben gently catches his hand, and holds it to his face, before pulling it to his mouth, and pressing his lips there.

“Poe,” he breathes. 

Poe smiles, and nods to the outside. “C’mon,” he says. 

Ben follows behind him, still holding onto his hand. They walk to the tree, feet treading on grass and moss and stones.

Ben looks up at the tree, and motions as if to touch it.

“I loved being here as a kid,” Poe said.

Ben puts a palm to the tree, and feels the coolness and the nothingness of a dream at the same time. He knows his body is on a cot on a ship headed towards certain doom, but this is his mind, Poe’s mind. He’s not sure where they are other than a collective and shared space in their thoughts. Ben thinks it feels like home. 

There was little to be said. Poe waiting for the sunrise, to wake up, Ben beside him, his shoulders hunched in on himself, the time passing in stillness, the warm breeze playing over their bodies. Poe can tell Ben is still with him, but he doesn’t know if thats a result of the link between them or the fact that Ben’s body language is easy for him to read.

“Ben?” he asks, calling out to the void, to the man right next to him. Ben huffs, and Poe can’t help but grin at this. 

“What?” Ben asks, harsh and unyielding.

“I need to know about Snoke.”

Ben’s body straightens. His spine a taut wire, waiting. “I’ve told you everything,” he says. “And,” he adds, “I’m not turning around.”

“No, I mean-” Poe stops. “I mean I can’t make your decisions for you. It’s your choice.”

Ben seems to go softer at this. 

“But I just want to know why. Can you help me understand?”

Ben sighs. “All my life I’ve been shoved away, used.”

Poe reaches out, wants to touch Ben, wants that feeling of reciprocity.

“And I know, I know in my head that I’m still being used, but I feel like I’m finally wanted. Not shoved off.” 

Poe waits, but nothing more comes but a feeling of dread.

“Ben,” he finally says. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not you, Poe. Whenever I’m with you, I feel, at peace. I have to go after Snoke because it’s the only way.”

“But it’s not,” Poe insists. “I’m coming with you. We can do this together.” Ben’s chest rises and falls steadily for a moment. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Ben says. “I don’t know what to do. This way, I go back to Snoke and he takes the bond away-”

“Ben.” Poe is shocked. Yes, having someone else in his head is not something he asked for. But now that it’s Ben, he can’t imagine anyone else being there. Can’t imagine what it would be like to not have someone there. He wants to ask if he’s not enough for Ben, but that’s ridiculous. One of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, and Poe is the best pilot, but the two are incomparable. Poe could never be enough for Ben. It’s simply the way it is. Poe struggles in finding the right words to say, but all he can come up with is the truth. “I’ll miss you,” he says.

Ben rolls over on his back, and Poe comes up next to him, slings an arm around Ben’s waist. He can feel the darkness closing in on them, huddled together under the gentle light of the force tree. 

 

When Kylo wakes up, he reaches out to the space next to him, reaches for Poe. He blearily opens his eyes and sees that he’s almost to the Finalizer, but an encrypted message has come through the comm. 

Puzzled, Kylo opens the encryption after several minutes, letting the symbols fall into place. It’s coordinates to a system not far from where he is now, halfway between the Finalizer and there. It doesn’t say who it is from, but Kylo already knows. It’s Snoke. 

He feels the weight of the darkness within him. It feels like he can’t breathe. He doesn’t want the darkness to consume him, but it’s such a part of him now. He can distantly hear the comfort of Poe’s mind, the easiness of his dreams. But then he can sense the darkness flowing to Poe, and Kylo desperately tries to reign it in, tries to cut off Poe from Snoke’s influence, but it’s already too late. Poe is having a nightmare now, screaming into the void, reaching for Kylo. Kylo, who ruined him.

Kylo closes his eyes and gently pulls Poe’s mind from there, from deep within Kylo’s fears, and he hastily imagines the force tree. The idea grows in Poe’s mind, and he clings onto that, wary. He still searches for Kylo, for Ben, and so Kylo sends a warmth down the line to assure Poe that he’s still there, if not actually present in the dream. 

Exhausted, Kylo leans back into the captain’s chair and rubs his hands over his face. Snoke will cut this bond, this peace that Kylo has found, and it will be gone forever.

Ben will be gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading! The comments and kudos are lovely, and it brings me such joy to see them. I may have a Sally Field moment.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suprise bonus chapter, bc I can't wait a week for you guys to read this.

The master waits at the end of a long walk down a stone path, dead leaves crunching under Kylo’s feet. The trees from all angles are dead, sleeping until spring can come again. Kylo can feel the cold wind through his clothes, his breath in a fog in front of him. The stones lead down to a structure, tall and barren. There are stones rising well above 10 meters. They surround a flat and round stone platform, a divot in the middle. 

Kylo thinks that maybe this was once a place of sacrifice, and he doesn’t know whether or not to laugh. It is appropriate, either way. Kylo can see the hooded figure waiting for him just at the left on the platform. Supreme Leader Snoke.

Kylo swallows, but does not hesitate in his steps down the path. His legs seem to lead him without permission.

When he reaches the raised bed, he kneels down, head bowed. He did not wear his mask, for what could he possibly hide from Snoke? His hair falls in a curtain, blocking his vision. The cold of the stone starts seeping into his knee. 

“So you have finally come,” Snoke says, not moving. He speaks slowly, sure of his place over Kylo. Sure that Kylo will bow to him. “Your obstinacy in overcoming your path has interfered with my plan.”

Kylo squeezes his eyes shut. There is nowhere he can be where the master cannot be. 

“I will break your bond, and you will be rid of the light, rid of the pilot.”

“Yes master.”

“And then, my young friend, I want you to be the one to tell him.”

“He knows.”

A cold wind blows through the standing stones, a hollow sound.

“He knows he will lose you, but he does not know he will lose his life.”

Kylo pauses, holds his breath. 

“Yes, his mind is so tied to yours through the force, the power between you both. When this is ripped from him, so will his mind be. He only holds echoes of you.”

Kylo brings his head up. Snoke’s back is still to him, and Kylo’s chest constricts. Snoke, in an effort to make Kylo more powerful will kill Poe.

Snoke must have known that the only reason that Kylo changed course is to save Poe. Kylo would sacrifice that part of him, that light for his master, but even that is not enough. It is not enough for the powerful man standing before him that Kylo would kill part of himself, he wants to kill Poe.

“In your childishness, you have strayed. I will make you do the deed.”

Kylo’s mouth flattens into a thin line, as he watches Snoke turn around. The hood covers most of his face like the Jedi robes of old. His hands are together in his wide sleeves. The robe is black, but even so reminds Kylo of Skywalker. Skywalker would have him sacrifice his darkness, and here he is offering his light to Snoke. 

“But you must know this: Just as he cannot give you power, you will not have the power you once had. You’ve given it away.”

Snoke faces Kylo, finally. 

Kylo wants to argue. Wants to tell him that he’s more powerful than he ever felt, tapping into the calmness that is Poe’s mind. What part of the link drains him of power? 

“You’d have me weakened, after all this?” he asks, the question darting out of him before he could stop it. 

“Your power could have been useful to me,” Snoke says. “It was, for a time. But now you’ve tainted yourself. What is done cannot be undone.”

Kylo rises at this. He can feel the cold seeping into him. Snoke is leading him in circles. There is no end to his twisted lies. Kylo saw through them then, but now the words fall flat at his feet. He can feel the light that Poe is, the power surging through him. The calmness that lies within him is his power now, and it’s because of Poe. But Snoke would have him sacrifice everything for chasing a dream.

“No.”

The word hangs in the cold air, Kylo sure in his refusal.

Snoke frowns, and Kylo can feel the anger rising in Snoke. 

“You will do it, and be grateful I have granted you such a boon.”

Kylo stands firm. “No,” he repeats, thinking for himself for once. Knowing that if he was worth all the pain, then he should be worth the payoff. There was so much time put into calling him here, seeking Ben’s weakness, turning him into Kylo. Kylo was more powerful than ever, and even should the bond be broken, he would return to what he was. Snoke is pushing him. Twisting words to challenge him to move. 

Every collision with Snoke is a riddle. But Kylo has been at his feet for so long, that he knows the key to code. He wants to show Kylo that he is nothing without Snoke. Break him again to show Snoke’s power over him. This bond will not kill him. It will not kill Poe. Because Kylo will not break the bond.

He pulls out his lightsaber, and switches it on. It is a refusal and a challenge. 

Kylo can hear Poe, telling him to run, that it’s not worth it. Kylo feels that his power has doubled with Poe, and he reaches and tugs at that connection, that string of light, and he can feel Poe’s energy being pulled to him, can sense his presence even though he’s not truly here. He can feel Poe stop, can feel him quiet down from his panic, and open up everything he is to Kylo. Giving him peace. Giving him the strength to do this. 

Snoke’s face is snarled, and Kylo can tell that it’s destroying him that he has power that Snoke cannot tap, but all Kylo feels is calm.

Snoke pulls his hands from his robe sleeves, and raises them. Kylo knows that lightening will strike at him, but he is ready. There is not much that a lightsaber can do, it is all the force, the power surrounding and flowing through him.

Snoke is shouting something, the lightening coming from his hands and striking Kylo down. Kylo struggles to rise again. The moment seems to go in slow motion. Snoke is telling him how worthless he is, but Kylo can’t hear it, because he thinks deliriously, that everything has clicked. The light that is inside him, the part of him that connects him to Poe, the part of him that is ashamed of his past, it is not any burnoff from the bond. No, it is him. He is the light, and the dark. 

The landscape seems to change around him, the rocks and the sleeping trees wake up, the force flowing through them, the wind that blows cold and the darkness in Snoke in front of him. The world burns bright, the world seems in blue flames, and the force flows through him. He feels the universe is alive for this one brilliant moment, and he can see everything. The water in the ground, the mist in the air, the rocks underneath his feet. He lets the force guide him, and he seems to dance through the toxicity that is Snoke’s darkness, the lightening that scorches Kylo’s body, and cuts Snoke down in one smooth swing.

Snoke drops, the anger still plain on his face. 

Kylo collapses next to him; the euphoric moment is gone. Everything is still alive, but it doesn’t burn as bright or as intensely. He lies looking up, and for one moment, sees the trees have faint tinges of green. The leaves sprouted. 

Anakin was right, even the smallest amount of water can feed the light. 

As he slips into unconsciousness, he feels Poe call out to him to come home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized that this story is mostly about sleeping. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, and I love each and every kudos and comment you guys send. Bless.


	7. Chapter 7

When they meet it is the finest thing Ben thinks he’s ever experienced. Also the most awkward, because they meet on the Resistance base. Poe is waiting for him at the docking bay, rocking on his toes, along with his mother who looks wary. Ben sighs, but walks down the ramp as calmly as possible in front of the militarized but limited audience, trying to look as clean as possible. Poe wraps his arms around him, and Ben sighs. It feels like home, finally. Poe pulls back with a smile. “I knew you could do it,” he says, like he never had a doubt. Poe steps away reluctantly to make way for Ben’s mother, tears in her eyes. 

“Welcome home,” she says, choked up for the first time Ben could ever remember. Poe is darting his eyes back and forth between them, and Ben leans forward to give this small and powerful woman a hug. Her eyes widen, but she accepts, and they both hold each other for a moment. 

When she pulls back her face is more controlled and serious. “The First Order still needs to be taken care of,” she says. “We have intel that I’m sure you can confirm about the Starkiller.”

Ben nods, and Poe jerks his head for him to follow him. 

Finn, as Ben learns, saved Poe, so Ben accepts him as this new person, just as Finn accepts him. When Finn tells everyone of his idea, Ben clears his throat. “I can do one better,” he says smiling at Finn. “I just need Finn and Poe to help.”

To his surprise they give it. Poe nudges him, and Ben realizes the pride he feels is Poe for him, and he doesn’t know how he’ll be able to handle all the emotion flowing through him.

So Ben dons his helmet once more and drags Finn and Poe behind him as traitors. “I can take down the shields, but the reactor is a different matter,” he says when they arrive. Finn shows him the sack of detonators that Han gave him. 

“I’m getting too old for this shit,” Han had said. But only after holding Ben for even longer than Leia did. 

The fight seems too easy, the Starkiller going up in a spectacular display of destruction. 

When everyone returns to the base, the celebration is already in motion. Poe leans over and kisses Ben. It seems like the natural thing to do. Poe is riding a high he’s only dreamed about before.

Poe is talking to General Organa, debriefing, and there’s a warmth in him that is unlike anything else he’s felt before. He pushes back, trying to encompass everything and give it back 

There’s a mixed feeling of amusement and love that trails back to him.

When Poe zones back in, Leia is looking at him, amused. “I’ll leave you two alone,” she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please consider this a placeholder. I want to re-write this whole fic.


End file.
